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There are more than 650 million Twitters users and more than 135,000 new users every day. Twitter has become the new major source of news, events, buzz, PR and links to all your corporate thought leadership. With global political, business and other leaders and entertainers posting on Twitter, it is the fastest way to “get the word out” and increasingly the most effective way of reminding people of and CTA-call to actions for specials, promotions and offers. In addition, photos and videos can be added which increase “stickiness” to your posts. In addition, Twitter is absolutely required for customer and product support engaging with upset customers and turn “lemons into lemonade” demonstrating you really care.

1 – You can never have enough followers and you can never respond fast enough when people complain about anything you do. The hashtag #fail is used by anyone to complain as Twitter is the new means of providing great customer services. Twitter is also the new newservice for all kinds of corporate communications.

2 – You are measured by your customers, competitors, stakeholders and industry on the number of followers you have.

3 – Search engines search Twitter which improves you page ranking. There is much debate about how Google, Bing and search works with Twitter, however, Twitter posts can easily be used to send followers to your blog, news, customer case studies, white papers and other thought leadership on your website or other places.

5 – Twitter is not just “do it once and you’re done” it is a river stream that follows 7×24 which means followers may not see your posts. Like car insurance ads on TV run over and over again a thousand times, the same can be done about Twitter posts because there are also new users joining Twitter every day (~135,000). Click here for a short article on using Twitter for self-promotion and not “winging it” and best practices as well as issues regarding SEC, FINRA and other compliance requirements.

6 – Twitter is about “keeping you top of mind to keep you first in line in customer awareness.” Since you do not often know when a customer is ready to buy, then posting on Twitter keeps them informed of what you are doing and keeps you on their mind when they are ready to buy.

8 – Increasingly customers go to Twitter posts before going to website. Since Twitter contains new content customers increasingly look at what you are “tooting” about as they look at what you are all about.

According to the survey, SMBs that have followers on Twitter enjoyed sales increases and endorsements. In particular, 72 percent of people are more likely to buy from an SMB in the future if they have followed or interacted with the business through Twitter.

Furthermore, 82 percent of respondents are more likely to recommend an SMB if they have followed the firm’s Twitter account. In addition, 86 percent said they are more likely to go to an SMB if it is recommended by a friend through the social networking site. Click here for survey.

10 – Posting is also more complicated – Here are 10 surprising new Twitter stats to help you reach more followers and see other post in thei blog for an article on using #hashtags and Golden Rule for better tooting.

Hashtags – Top-10 Tips The #1 number often asked question when I teach social media classes is what are #hash tags.

Here are the top-10 tips for using #hash tags but first what are #hash tags. They are simply just ways to put topics in lists or sections like your favorite newspaper has financial, sports, food, family and others. Hash tags are easy-to-use Twitter tools so you can post tweets in sections and other viewers can find them. Go to the search box in the top of the Twitter page and type in #news, #sports, #fashion or whatever you like and see what’s there, you will begin to see what they are. Here’s how you can use them. Hash tags are:

1 – Global and timely – like #worldpeace and #thanksgiving you can post topics that are relevant to the world and important holidays.

2 – Local and specific – like #Boulder and #Bolderboulder you can use them for specific areas and local events.

3 – Part “art” to using them like support #boulderstar or your favorite local cause where you support others in their efforts.

4 – Part “science” to using them like “our products are #glutenfree which improves your digestion.”

5 – 7×24 which means that your viewers may be viewing your Twitter posts anytime. In fact, there is a new study that says users go to Twitter even before they go to your website. If you are open five days a week, then Twitter the days you are open and even let them know your business hours. Even if you are a “lunch wagon” open only a few hours a day, use Twitter to tell your customers about specials, product ideas and most importantly customer complaints. If you have a business crisis, use Twitter to let customers know that as well. Here is a Twitter post I made today — #holiday #travel tip from @CBSThisMorning – check #airlines #Twitter as they update #socialmedia faster than their websites.

6 – Congenial – use hashtags to support causes, events and other activities that benefit your philosophy, community or the world.

7 – Harsh – #fail, #failfail and others are hashtags you better be aware of and respond to like lightning. Twitter is 7×24 and if you want to wait until Monday to find out that Friday night your business or product was “dissed” and spread to potentially millions of Twitter users is not something you want. In addition, you could find yourself facing a yourself with a RGE-resume generating event if the CEO thinks you were slow in responding. If you decide to use Twitter, then like breathing you need to do it every day. In addition Twitter is rapidly becoming the #1 way customers complain about your products/services. If you don’t respond rapidly then you are letting the public decide your rate. Responding quickly shows you really care or at least looks like you do.

8 – Content – some may argue the overuse of hashtags but yet go ahead and use them anyway you can. Not to say you would make every word a hashtag in your post yet look at each word and then go to the Search box and see what appears for the #word you used.

9 – Juxtapositions – when used to contrast you post. #Married and #single, #coal and #cleanair, #Android and #Apple are examples of how you can use them to talk about your own product or idea. Rather than just “diss” a product you may want to say your product is #faster, #better or #cheaper than another brand.

10 – Self-serving – create your own hashtag if you think you enough followers or enough nerve to this people will use them. Not every business has cool enough products or issues to warrant creating your own hashtag but if you want to waste the character, then go for it. Included in this category are causes whether to protest, overthrow a government or fight for clean environment. Use self-serving hashtags sparingly as always remember Twitter is a “stream of consciousness” and a fast stream of that as your cause and content is like glory “fleeting.” I started with just doing ten but realized when I finished there was one more that may be more important than all the rest.

11 – Grateful – never-ever not thank another person follower or not if they RT-retweet or say something nice about you. You don’t need to thank people who Favorite something you say. If they include you in a Twitter post or out-right say did something good, then RT their posting or better yet take the time to time to thank them with a post of your own. Lastly, follow followers back the Golden Rule follow those who follow you because while you can see who follows them you don’t know who follows them and so on. They may have followers who may find what you say, do or seek interesting enough to share with their followers and again you will never know all those who follow them.

Bottom-line Twitter #Hashtags is new “short-hand” of communicating using Twitter. Companies use them to promote things like #supermanthemovie. They are useful, powerful and timely but unless you know how to use them they may turn against you.

If you want help in gaining and retaining Twitter followers to use Twitter to increase revenues, deal with customer complaints and increase customer satisfaction, contact me at cross@gocross.com for help as I “ghost post” for more than clients totally more than 10,000 followers and growing. If you are on Twitter, please follow @techtionary – we follow back.

References:

From TrackMaven – Hashtags increase retweet frequency

Hashtags are prevalent across different social media platforms as a means of attracting attention increase the likelihood of retweets. 5 hashtags in a tweet on average gets 0.301 retweets while not using hashtags has an average of 0.116 retweets. While many Twitter users steer clear of using more than 3 hashtags, the use of 5 hashtags versus 3 appears to increase retweets. Even the use of 6 and 7 hashtags yields higher retweets than the use of 3 hashtags. Interestingly, the use of over 11 hashtags appears to yield over 0.500 retweets.

Most people hate being organized but yet some people love making lists for things that have to be done. Still others for whom the very idea of creating a to-do list is, you pick the adjective that fits. The fact is that there are many benefits of making, at least, some to-do lists. In essence, a to-do list is a list that lists all the things that you have to accomplish within time frame or rather deadline, not often referred to as a “hard stop.” These action oriented time-dependent items can be easily ticked off the list when they are completed which ensures that you don’t forget to get something done and hopefully get it done.

A completed to-do list will give you the satisfaction of being on the top of your game and you will only feel more in control of your life. There are many other benefits of to-do lists.

Benefits of Writing it Down

These to-do lists allow you to concentrate your focus on a task that is both important and urgent. This way you and possibly others to prioritize everything that you or they need to accomplish and work the way through the list in a given time frame. Putting things down in writing helps people to prioritize as well as think clearly knowing that there is no aspect of planning that you have missed. This also helps you and your teammates or colleagues focus on a particular task that is high on your priority to-do list. When you already know what you have to accomplish on a given day or even week, it becomes easy to manage the time to actually get the task done.

Another benefit of writing down ideas to comprise a to-do list is that it frees your mind. It is very similar to a movie that impressed audiences in the summer of 2011 called X-Men: First Class. There is a scene in that movie when the character Erik Lehnsherr is talking to Raven or Mystique about the fact that she could reach her full capabilities if she stopped concentrating on being normal. He told her natural self was blue skin and she should accept that and not worry about blending in all of the time. By trying to blend in, she was wasting concentration power and by looking like a normal human was forcing her brain to utilize a section of it that could be devoted to harnessing her full strength and mental capacity.

Making a to-do-list also falls under the same concept. It frees your mind. When you have the notion in your head in regards to a task that needs to be completed, just write it down. Compile a list or put in a calendar like iSportcal, CrossPinPoints or iREcal. Then you do not have to continue to remind yourself about it or think about it as the day or days go on. In addition, writing something down reinforces that idea into your mind anyway.

Finding Like Tasks

There may be come tasks that have certain similarities. For example, you may need to speak with one person to get two kinds of information or two stores that you need to visit for specific items but that are in close proximity to each other. You will be able to work out a better routine once you can see the likenesses between the tasks.

Be Calmer

In case you are still not convinced, to-do lists are known to decrease stress and anxiety. Writing it all down gives you a clear plan of how to make it happen which in turn, removes the ambiguity out of the situation. Not only are to-do lists a great boon to effective time management, they also help you with energy management. You can pace yourself through the day, depending on what needs to be accomplished so that you do not end up too tired at the end of the day or week. This sort of touches on what was mentioned before about allowing your mind to concentrate on the task at hand rather than focusing on something that needs to be completed at some point in the near future.

Using Technology

Creating to-do lists is one of the top principles and tips of functioning time management. You will be able to assign a set number of hours or even minutes in a day to obtain the biggest as well as the minutest things that should be tackled. Many people become bogged down by the whole paper-pen aspect of creating lists. With advances in technology, this is no longer the case. You can easily use our a multimedia todo list, calendar/planner like iFlipTips, and/or your smartphone to create effective & poignant to-do lists that you can update and change while on the run and have you complete a task. After all, there is not any reason to keep a task around if you have already managed to complete it. So make that to-list or even better put it in a calendar and stop procrastinating.